The skinny on when and where to pick up tickets

People will be able to purchase their tickets to the Shanghai 2010 World Expo as early as July 1.

Individual tickets will be sold at various outlets belonging to 13 appointed ticket agencies, including China Mobile, China Telecom, China Post and Bank of Communications.

From next month, individual ticket seekers will be able to purchase both peak and standard day tickets.

Before the end of the year, a standard day individual ticket will cost 140 yuan ($21) while a peak day individual ticket (designed to help control crowd numbers) will go for 180 yuan. Individuals waiting to buy tickets when the expo opens should expect to pay up to 20 yuan more per ticket.

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Peak days next year will be: May 1 to 3, October 1 to 7, and October 25 to 31. Those looking to buy three-day and seven-day passes will have to wait until the beginning of next year. The same applies to discounted tickets for students, people aged 60 and over, people with disabilities and members of the Chinese military. There is no admission charge for children under 1.2 m.

Tickets to the expo garden at night will become available when the expo starts. Unlike the Beijing Olympics, individuals do not need to register their identification details when making purchases.

Apart from at the appointed outlets, tickets may also be obtained online, by phone or through a registered mail service. All tickets sold at designated outlets include special encoding to safeguard against counterfeits.

China Mobile will go one step further by selling electronic tickets. This will allow cell phone subscribers to book and download their tickets through a SMS service.

Group tickets, which became available to the public in late March, will remain on sale until the end of the expo.